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Camden County officers frustrated as anniversary of homicide approaches with no arrests

Terry.Dickson@jacksonville.com A banner at the eastern end of McKinnon Road offers a reward for help in finding the person responsible for Emily Drury's death in her home on the dirt road.

WOODBINE | An anniversary is coming up that Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor dreads.

Come Sept. 4, Emily Drury, 39, will have been dead a year, the victim of a homicide. Her killer hasn’t been identified.

“It bothers the stew out of me,’’ Proctor said from his office last week.

Deputies who were asked to check on Drury’s welfare went to her isolated house and found her lying dead on the floor. At first, investigators believed she had died from natural causes but an autopsy showed otherwise.

Drury lived 2 miles down McKinnon Road, a dirt road that intersects U.S. 17 south of the White Oak community. The road has no other houses, and it dead-ends just past her modest wood siding house.

In the months after her death, the house went into foreclosure and was bought from the lenders. The gate across the driveway is chained shut and mattresses and other belongings are piled high behind the house.

Proctor said he doubts Drury’s death was a crime of opportunity by someone who just happened upon the house.

“It’s not a place you just pass by. You have to want to go to it,’’ he said.

There is a big banner tied around pines at the eastern end of the road, which leaves U.S. 17 as Chaney Road, then quickly picks up McKinnon.

The banner is catchy with its “$25,000 Reward” in red. It has a picture of Drury that police have circulated since just days after her death.

That’s a lot of money but no one has given enough information to qualify, Proctor said as he handed over a business-sized card.

The cards have another picture of Drury and have the amount of the reward, printed to stand out. The card says she was last seen about 6 p.m. Sept. 3 at the Waverly Minit Mart on U.S. 17 and that she drove a white Ford Aerostar van.

“Even the smallest details may help bring the person or persons responsible to justice,’’ the card says.

Drury’s family members had 1,000 of the cards printed and were handing them out.

“We reimbursed them for those and had 1,000 more printed,’’ Proctor said.

He and his officers give them out whenever possible, sometimes when they go on other calls, he said.

It is important for people to consider that a detail they consider unimportant may not be, that it could lead to something, Proctor said.

Like Proctor, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is following leads, said Mike McDaniel, special agent in charge of the Kingsland office.

And like Proctor, McDaniel said the leads haven’t produced much yet, but both remain hopeful. GBI agents are also asking the crime lab to do more tests on materials collected at the scene and some of those results aren’t yet available, McDaniel said.

“The crime lab has been very good to us on this case, and we appreciate it,’’ McDaniel said.

“We’re looking at everything we can. Maybe somebody will run their mouth,’’ he said.